Issue - meetings

The Council’s Internal Auditor presented a report of the Interim Head of Shared Assurance providing a progress report on the Audit Plan for 2019/20 from 1 April to 31 October 2019.

It was reported that 5 reviews were at draft report stage awaiting finalisation, a further 4 had commenced and 2 had been completed.  The completed reviews were on performance management information with a limited assurance rating and review of the Improvement Reference Group / annual governance statement without an assurance rating.  In order to ensure the audit plan is completed an additional auditor had been appointed.

Following a Member enquiry, the definition of limited assurance is that the Council cannot place sufficient reliance on the controls in place, with substantive weaknesses.  With regards the performance management review, further testing of the data was undertaken and found that 10 out of the 21 performance measures were wrongly reported, with 5 not having the source documentation.  Management had put in place an action plan and a follow-up audit would be undertaken in 3 – 6 months’ time.

Reference was made to the unplanned additional work undertaken of 21.5 days that hadn’t been included in the audit plan previously presented to the Committee.  It was explained that the unplanned work was driven by emerging issues identified as part of legacy issues and work on the Annual Governance Statement.  Additional resources had been made available to complete the unplanned work, with the costs met from underspends elsewhere in Shared Services.  Confirmation was provided that the detail of the unplanned work would be presented to the Committee at the appropriate time.  The cost of the additional unplanned work was requested and would also be provided.

Reassurance was provided that the audit plan would be delivered as planned within the resources provided as long as no unforeseen issues arose.

Members felt it would be helpful to receive the reports from any future audit reviews that receive a limited assurance rating.

RESOLVED (Unanimously):

1.    That the report be noted.

2.    Detailed information on the unplanned work and costs involved would be provided to the Committee at the appropriate time.

3.    Future audit review reports with limited assurance be provided to the Committee.